AMD CPU+GPU Fusion by 2010 end

Intel has been trying to do it since years, but they have failed in a an ugly fashion with poor graphics performance of Core i3, Core i5. Not just that, Intel has failed at even creating a decent dedicated Graphics processor. Now AMD, with years of strong Graphics processor ATI, seems to be holding strong with Fusion of CPU + GPU.

AMD Fusion was planned for 2011, but as per today’s announcement, they seem pretty confident that they would be able to deliver Fusion products to system builders within this year. No doubt, AMD has been talking about Fusion for years, and Intel has already taken the lead (only in time) to AMD by launching its Clarkdale Core i3 and Core i5 CPUs with integrated graphics, even though these use separate CPU and GPU dies combined in a single CPU package.

AMD however, is determined to combine everything into one piece of silicon that does both General purpose CPU and Graphics. On being asked, How well is this going to be, AMD’s representative Bob Grim replies:

“I don’t think there’s a simple answer to that, if you look at the history of AMD, when we came out with dual-core processors, we built a true dual-core processor. When we came out with quad-cores, we built a true quad-core processor. What our competitors did was an MCM solution – taking two chips and gluing them together.

There was a fair bit of engineering work involved too, but we just have a tradition of building a piece of silicon from the ground up, in fact the only MCM (Multi-Chip Module) solution I’m aware of that we’ve ever done is on the server side with our 12-core product (the Opteron 6174). [Regardless], what we’ll be launching with Fusion is definitely all on one die.”

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AMD believes (and which is logically true) that building a CPU/GPU hybrid chip on a single piece of silicon would yield significant speed advantages if not Tremendous. Apart from that, it should have power and performance advantages because it is done with latest 32nm manufacturing process. The Future is Fusion.

Staff MemberPremium SupporterMicrosoft MVP

AMD shows off Fusion Written by Nick Farrell Wednesday, 02 June 2010 10:00

Hybrid graphics-microprocessor chips

AMD has been showing off its new hybrid graphics-microprocessor chips. In a press release AMD said it is on schedule to show working chips later this year and launch the Accelerated Processing Units.

AMD said that the Fusion design represents a significant shift in the architecture of personal computers, combining the microprocessor, which is great at processing big tasks one after another, with the graphics chip, which can process lots of small and similar tasks all at the same time.

Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager of the AMD Products Group, showed off the APU technology in Taipei saying that hundreds of millions of us now create, interact with, and share intensely visual digital content.

“This explosion in multimedia requires new applications and new ways to manage and manipulate data.”

The first APUs are expected to ship in the first half of 2011, but AMD is describing the designs now so that it can get software developers working on making code to run on Fusion. Microsoft is providing DirectX multimedia software that works with Fusion.

Staff MemberPremium SupporterMicrosoft MVP

AMD's most misused word in the history of the company, Fusion, still has many questions to answer. Mr. Rick Bergman, AMD's VP and the spiritual leader of ATI’s part of AMD has shown off what seems to be a Fusion packed wafer and Alien vs Predator in DirectX 11 playback. At this time, we are not aware that anyone has seen this chip or the actual system in action.

It seems it will be a while before we can see actual products or samples. AMD is a serious company and they should have have some samples for later this year, but it looks like most systems will only ship in the first half of 2011.

The competition has Sandy Bridge, its version of 32nm CPU and GPU. AMD’s Fusion should be a 40nm chip which looks like a disadvantage to us, especially considering the mid-2011 launch date. There are still many things to be revealed, but AMD’s Fusion has a chance to show 6 years after it was first time mentioned and the company can only hope that its Fusion chip is going to be a success.

AMD Fusion is the codename for a future next-generation microprocessor design and the product of the merger between AMD and ATI, combining general processor execution as well as 3D geometry processing and other functions of modern GPUs into a single package.

wouldn't it be easier to simply redesign a motherboard and add the CPU to a GPU card if they just made a faster socket in the first place, it's accepted that top end GPUs are large so why not take a short cut and build one that way rather than wasting time shrinking the GPU to fit a CPU die.

wouldn't it be easier to simply redesign a motherboard and add the CPU to a GPU card if they just made a faster socket in the first place, it's accepted that top end GPUs are large so why not take a short cut and build one that way rather than wasting time shrinking the GPU to fit a CPU die.

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Isn't it the idea of AMD fusion, this way or another, to combine the resources of GPUs and CPU ?

What I guess I ment was why even have a seperate slot for just the cpu on a motherboard when they could use addon on slots like graphics cards, and they could stop worrying about having to fit a cpu into a postage stamp size area and ramp them up to something more like a GPU card idea, or indeed combine them. When you consider the sizes of decent coolers for CPUs these days it suggests to me it's maybe time to change the layouts rather than trundle on using old less efficient ideas, and start designing them to pump the hot air directly out the case.

If you look at most motherboards there's quite a lot of wasted space in the area for CPU, if they move CPU to a pcie style bus (with dedicated channels and prehaps more bandwidth) you could fit more in, hell you could even change making upgrading cpus a moot point as you could have multiple cpu slots (each capable of doing 16 core cpus and allow them to be racked up to whatever level or combination, which I guess is what server rack versions are doing already.

Occurs to me they tried something like that with the old P3 chips... as I remember having a verticle mounted cpu back then.

What I guess I ment was why even have a seperate slot for just the cpu on a motherboard when they could use addon on slots like graphics cards, and they could stop worrying about having to fit a cpu into a postage stamp size area and ramp them up to something more like a GPU card idea, or indeed combine them. When you consider the sizes of decent coolers for CPUs these days it suggests to me it's maybe time to change the layouts rather than trundle on using old less efficient ideas, and start designing them to pump the hot air directly out the case.

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I sure see what you're saying, but if you combine CPU with the video card there comes a little problem: say you've bought a chip like phenom+ati5870, and then you want phenomx6+ati 5970, see they are gonna be in one bundle and very expensive. Cause the way things are now 1 CPU can live longer than 3 video cards, you just change the cards and no need to change the CPU. If combined or just placed close to each other, there is also a good chance they will be overheating and there won't be enough free space for a decent cooling system.

Although I wouldn't claim such approach wasn't possible at some point in the future.

well if you look at SLI setups, if they shifted the slots around they could fit 6 double slots with ample cooling on dedicated cards, I agree combining cpu and gpu is not really much use to power users, but having banks of cpus rather than a single socket type they currently do, would be a better use of space with few drawbacks from the users point of view... obviously chip makers would be wanting smaller jumps in tech that force folk to upgrade everything to make them more profit.

Staff MemberPremium SupporterMicrosoft MVP

I should imagine that the fusion chips are intended for the laptop/mobile market where space is at a premium. I think there would have to be a major change in design (and power) if these were ever to be intended for the high end user..

Intel has been trying to do it since years, but they have failed in a an ugly fashion with poor graphics performance of Core i3, Core i5. Not just that, Intel has failed at even creating a decent dedicated Graphics processor. Now AMD, with years of strong Graphics processor ATI, seems to be holding strong with Fusion of CPU + GPU.

AMD Fusion was planned for 2011, but as per today’s announcement, they seem pretty confident that they would be able to deliver Fusion products to system builders within this year. No doubt, AMD has been talking about Fusion for years, and Intel has already taken the lead (only in time) to AMD by launching its Clarkdale Core i3 and Core i5 CPUs with integrated graphics, even though these use separate CPU and GPU dies combined in a single CPU package.

AMD however, is determined to combine everything into one piece of silicon that does both General purpose CPU and Graphics. On being asked, How well is this going to be, AMD’s representative Bob Grim replies:

AMD believes (and which is logically true) that building a CPU/GPU hybrid chip on a single piece of silicon would yield significant speed advantages if not Tremendous. Apart from that, it should have power and performance advantages because it is done with latest 32nm manufacturing process. The Future is Fusion.

Staff MemberPremium SupporterMicrosoft MVP

The first Fusion to come from AMD is a dual-core. This chip fits in Brazos platform that take care the entry level of market, and such a GPU has a big chance to end up in notebooks. We can tell you that this dual-core has a DirectX 11 GPU, it comes in BGA packaging and it works with a quite acceptable 25W TDP. The planned launch date is the latter part of Q4 2010 and this is of course if all goes well. You can bet that after CES 2011, many vendors might have this CPU in their desktop and notebooks systems.

We can also add that this is a 32nm CPU/GPU or APU (Application Processing Unit) how AMD likes to call it and even this version of Fusion can support up to 4 cores, but it's different from Llano APU that goes in Lynx platform.